sorry about the title, i mean to write "computer will only run in safe mode".



This is not a quick-fix problem, and I really need an expert who can help me.

Since about last August, my computer will freeze less than five minutes after booting in normal mode. This will happen whether I use the internet, log on, etc.- there seems to be no correlation between what I'm doing and when it freezes. It started one morning when I woke up to a frozen screensaver- restarted the computer, and it froze a few minutes later... again, and again and again. I cannot recall making any changes at all to my computer before this started. I tried system restore immediately and it said no changes had been made to my computer. I don't know if it's drivers, hardware, registry, or what.
Since then i've been working in safe mode with networking, which besides being a general nuisance, has put my computer at risk because I'm unable to install windows updates, etc.
For the past week or so I've been posting at the SWI forums and the only conclusion that we've really come to is that it's not a malware problem. Here's the link to the post if you'd like to review it: http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index....pic=92457&st=0

I'm pretty much desperate, so, anyone who has any insight on this at all, please help?

I went thru the previous posts, I did not see if you ran and registry program to solve any registry problems. Also, one simple question: Did you try to re-install the operating system from you backup disks/drive? There is the feature that allow you to keep all other programs and allows you to only replace the operating system programs. Of course after that, you have to download all updates again.

Freezes are generally hardware issues but since you can work in Safe Mode we can guess rather reasonably that some hardware driver is not happy.

The first suspect would be your graphics drivers. Try uninstalling and reinstalling these.

Freezing also brings to the suspect list your PSU. Hardware that is getting bad or inconsistent power signals is likely to freeze everything.

Again in Safe Mode your graphics card might not be drawing the same power it does when fully activated.

You can get a PSU tester for a few dollars at most any electronics store.

You can also test your RAM:

http://www.memtest86.com/

And also running the diagnostic on your hard drive would be a good idea. The manufacturer's web site will have a diagnostic download.

You also could try reinstalling XP and if the issue persists then it is definitely hardware.

I tried to repair/reinstall using a windows upgrade disc I have but got nothing but error messages, if that's what you mean by reinstalling the operating system.
I don't think I did run a program specifically for registry problems.
If I uninstall my graphics driver (which i'm guessing is nvidia windows xp/2000 display drivers, how do I reinstall it?
Someone else also suggested I run a diagnostic hdd program but I don't know how to find out who the manufacturer of my hard drive is.

Again errors while installing XP are most likely a hardware issue.

nVidia drivers are here: http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Hard drive ID: go to the Device Manager > Disk drives

Right click My Computer then click Manage then Device Manager

Click the + next to Disk drives

What does it list?

It lists WDC WD200BB-00AUA1.

That's Western Digital. Diagnostic's here:

http://support.wdc.com/download/inde...pid=999&swid=3

You can try the Windows version for starters. The DOS version might be more comprehensive.

okay i'm having yet another problem.
I uninstalled the nvidia driver, then tried to install one of the ones from the website, and each time during the install process I get a message saying "the nvidia setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. setup will now exit."
????

What is your graphics card?

Go back to the Device Manager and look under Display adapters

ag315-64